Dealing with The Deep

Lu Heng returned to the private apartment Vought had arranged for him, took a shower, and lay on the sofa to scroll through his phone.

He felt a bit thirsty halfway through, and the wine cabinet was filled with various expensive spirits; just looking at the bottles told him they weren't cheap.

Thinking back to his annual salary of twelve million dollars, Lu Heng shook his head. He felt like he was about to be bought off by the sugar-coated bullets of capitalism.

Popularity rises and falls; traffic couldn't stay focused on him alone forever.

The collection of online emotions would inevitably fluctuate.

It seemed this was also a variable; he had to maintain high exposure at all times.

Current Ability Points: 54,676 / 100,000

Lu Heng was just calculating which key character to approach next, or where to go to crack down on crime, when his phone rang.

The caller ID showed an unknown number.

This phone was quite private; very few people had his contact information.

He assumed it must be from Vought.

"Mr. Guardian? This is Ashley Barrett from Vought's PR department."

The voice on the other end of the line was fast and urgent.

"We need to talk about what happened tonight, as soon as possible. Please come over."

Lu Heng glanced at the time: 1:40 AM.

What a lunatic!

Who calls in the middle of the night?

"Nine o'clock tomorrow morning, your office."

"But—"

Lu Heng didn't care why Ashley was still working at 1:40 AM; he hung up the phone directly.

He rolled over and fell asleep in two seconds.

His Viltrumite physique didn't require much sleep, but he enjoyed it—a habit formed in his past life.

Besides, letting Ashley stew in anxiety for a few more hours wouldn't be a bad thing.

The next morning at exactly nine o'clock.

Lu Heng appeared at the door of Ashley's office right on time.

He walked in without even knocking.

Ashley sat behind her desk with three laptops spread out in front of her and seven or eight empty coffee cups piled by her hand.

Her dark circles were so thick it looked like she'd been punched twice.

Clearly, she hadn't slept all night.

"Sit, please sit." Ashley stood up, forcing a professional smile. "Coffee? Water?"

Having been left hanging by Lu Heng all night, Ashley didn't dare utter a peep. Seeing the man himself finally arrive, she immediately put on a fawning smile.

As an insider, she was a mid-level executive at Vought, and she certainly knew that the man in front of her was no easier to deal with than Homelander.

"Get to the point."

Ashley took a deep breath and turned one of the laptop screens toward him.

On the screen was the surveillance footage from the conference room last night.

The angle was clear: the door being kicked off its hinges, The Deep standing in the middle with his pants half-down, Annie with her knees bent, and then Lu Heng flying in.

"The Seven's exclusive floor has full-coverage surveillance," Ashley said, her speech rapid. "Only I and the head of security have seen this footage so far. I've locked the original file, and security has signed non-disclosure agreements, but..."

One of her hands reached up to her hair and tugged at it involuntarily.

"I need your cooperation. If this video leaks, The Deep is finished, the brand image of The Seven will be severely impacted, and Vought's stock price will..."

"Are you telling me how to do my job?"

Ashley shut her mouth.

Lu Heng leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs and resting them on the corner of her desk, his posture as casual as if he were in his own home.

No, he wasn't even this arrogant in his own home.

"Ashley, right? I remember you. You're a smart person, so I can tell you this."

He held up a finger.

"First, keep the video suppressed. Don't destroy it; keep a backup locked under the highest clearance."

"Second, from today on, The Deep is not to participate in any core activities of The Seven. Find a reason—transfer him to charity tours, have him cut ribbons at aquariums, I don't care. Just make him disappear from Starlight's line of sight."

Ashley opened her mouth to say something, but Lu Heng didn't give her the chance.

"If you find that difficult, I can go talk to The Deep myself. However, my way of talking might not be suitable for the interior of Vought Tower. You should have seen the video of that slap I gave A-Train."

Ashley Barrett's hand trembled as she hurriedly tried to stop him.

"No, no, no, don't be impulsive, everything is negotiable!"

"I... I need to consult with Madelyn first—"

"Fine, but I won't back down. The internal culture of The Seven is far too corrupt." Lu Heng stood up, preparing to leave. "Even keeping someone like The Deep on the team will cause an explosion sooner or later. Today it was Starlight, tomorrow it could be one of his fans."

"How hard is it to find a superhero who advocates for environmentalism? Do we really need a twisted pervert like him in that role?"

"I believe that with Vought's financial resources, if we remove The Deep, there will be plenty of people willing to take his place."

Ashley was already making the call, her hands shaking so badly she pressed the wrong numbers twice.

[Key Character: Ashley Barrett]

[Emotional State: Fear / Helplessness / Forced Compliance]

[Ability Points Gained: +743]

Lu Heng walked out of Ashley's office, intending to head downstairs for breakfast.

Just as he reached the elevator, a voice came from behind him.

"Guardian?"

Starlight stood at the end of the hallway, dressed in casual clothes: a white hoodie, jeans, and sneakers.

Her slightly chubby face looked so innocent; she was the quintessential blonde sweetheart.

"Are you waiting for me?" Lu Heng asked.

"Do you have a moment?"

"I do."

"Can we find somewhere to talk? Not here—there are cameras everywhere."

Lu Heng thought for a moment.

"How about the rooftop?"

On the rooftop of Vought Tower.

The wind was strong, and half of Manhattan was visible.

With a precise flick of his finger, Lu Heng launched a compressed air bullet that shattered the rooftop camera.

"About last night..." Annie started, her expression puzzled. "How did you know?"

"If you're asking if I was spying on you, I wasn't," Lu Heng said.

"I have super-hearing. I can hear most sounds within the building."

"So you've been listening the whole time?"

"Of course not on purpose. Super-hearing doesn't come with an off switch; I can only try my best to filter out useless information."

Annie was silent for a while.

"I've wanted to be a superhero since I was a child. My mother told me when I was very young that I was special, that I could save the world. I believed it, right up until last night."

She looked down at her hands.

"Joining The Seven was my dream, and yet, on the very first night, I was almost..."

Lu Heng didn't respond; he didn't know what Annie's goal was in seeking him out.

Gratitude? It had been a trivial matter for him.

Annie took a deep breath.

"Why did you join Vought?"

"For the money and the fame. Vought can give me what I want."

Annie turned to look at him.

Lu Heng shrugged. "I'm not joking. Before joining the Vought family, I only had thirty-seven dollars in my bank account."

"Edgar offered me a price I couldn't refuse: a twelve-million-dollar annual salary and a Midtown Apartment. The trade-off was that I could still fly around the streets fighting crime, but I would be subordinate to Vought. Only an idiot would turn down an offer like that."

Annie's expression was one of surprise.

She had assumed that Guardian joined Vought for the sake of fairness and justice.

How... how could his reasoning be so...

"You saved me, not because of money or fame, right?"

"That was just a matter of convenience!" Lu Heng spread his hands. "Even though Vought is a cesspool, I can still choose what I want to do. Saving you was just because I couldn't stand to see a pervert get what he wanted."

Lu Heng offered a casual excuse.

He saved Starlight simply because she could contribute ability points.

As for romance, Starlight was indeed beautiful and cute, but his Viltrumite bloodline made him prefer women with a tougher exterior, like Queen Maeve.

"This conversation is not what I imagined it would be."

Starlight pursed her lips, assuming this was a meeting of two idealistic souls.

As it turned out, the person across from her was a total blockhead.

"That is the gap between idealism and reality, child!"

"You're only a year older than me, stop acting like some seasoned mentor!"

Annie instinctively slapped Lu Heng.

The action was so natural that by the time she realized what she had done, it was already too late.

Annie stole a quiet glance at Lu Heng.

He didn't seem to mind.

[Key Character: Annie January (Starlight)]

[Emotional Shift: Confused → Relieved → Deepened Trust]

[Ability Points Gained: +1,847]

Current Ability Points: 57,266 / 100,000

The two stayed on the rooftop for over twenty minutes, chatting about nothing in particular.

It was mostly just small talk and sharing a bit about themselves, and just like that, Lu Heng became Starlight's first friend at Vought.

After she left, Lu Heng stood on the rooftop for a while longer.

His super-hearing caught the sound of a heartbeat moving away.

The frequency was familiar.

It was Homelander's heartbeat.

How long had he been listening from above?

Lu Heng didn't know.

But he could guess well enough that Homelander had likely come for The Deep.

Homelander didn't like things to spiral out of his control, especially when it came to The Seven, which he considered his own.

Now, someone was trying to interfere with the status of a member of The Seven without his input!

This undoubtedly crossed Homelander's red line.

"Yo, yo, yo, getting anxious?"

Lu Heng grinned.

Vought Tower.

Homelander's private room.

He stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, arms crossed, staring at his reflection in the glass.

His face was absolutely perfect, his blonde hair combed without a single strand out of place.

But his expression... was more wretched than if he had swallowed ten thousand flies.

The Deep was about to be sidelined, and this was an order Edgar had delivered to him personally!

It was not open to debate, nor was it open to questioning.

The window glass shattered, and the cold wind rushed in.

Homelander's expression began to lose all composure.